ProfessorBainbridge.com

Star Trek FB quip of the day

A FB friend quipped:

Repeal the Prime Directive! It's dumb, it continuously gets violated by captains who want to show they're renegades, and it's more nannyish than anything @MikeBloomberg came up with.

True that.

Why Hollywood pinkos like Joss Whedon hate capitalism

Joss Whedon is definitely well up in the 1%, probably the 0.01%, but that doesn't stop him from strutting his socialist creds:

“We are watching capitalism destroy itself right now,” [Whedon] told the audience.

He added that America is “turning into Tsarist Russia” and that “we’re creating a country of serfs.”

Whedon was raised on the Upper Westside neighborhood of Manhattan in the 1970s, an area associated with left-leaning intellectuals. He said he was raised by people who thought socialism was a ''beautiful concept."

Socialism remains a taboo word in American politics, as Republicans congressmen raise the specter of the Cold War. They refer to many Obama administration initatives as socialist, and the same goes for most laws that advocate increasing spending on social welfare programs. They also refer to the President as a socialist, though this and many of their other claims misuse the term.

This evidently frustrates Whedon ....

It is, of course, the classic limousine liberalism that pervades my hometown of Hollywood. Indeed, most of my immediate neighbors are Mercedes-driving putative social democrats.

But why? At a Hollywood social event, I once had a lefty in the entertainment business tell me that it was because liberals are creative and conservatives aren't. But surely that can't be right. After all, conservative capitalists have created more jobs, goods, and useful services of far greater social value than any of the ephemera that flows out of movie studios.

No, I think my late friend Larry Ribstein had it right. In his classic article Wall Street and Vine: Hollywood's View of Business, Larry argued that filmmakers are down on capitalism because they resent "capitalists' constraints on their artistic vision."

In other words, Whedon's socialism comes not from any real thought or intellectual inquiry (as anyone who has suffered through one of his films can attest). Instead, it's just because he's pissed off that the suits have final cut.

The new Highlander: An even guiltier pleasure than the first

In in order to enjoy Highlander in any form you have to be willing to overlook conventional logic and reason. And though the recent casting news of Ryan Reynolds as the lead in the impending reboot film might sound lame, it actually makes perfect sense.

Because Highlander has always been about being brazenly lame. And if there’s one person who gets how do that it, it’s Ryan Reynolds.

via www.tor.com

The Highlander films (except the especially execrable Higlander 2) and the live action TV show havealways been among my guilty cultural pleasures. Ryan Reynolds will doubtless make me feel even guiltier about loving the franchise. Cool.

BTW, whatever happened to Adrian Paul?

Ted Frank on "Prometheus" and officers' fiduciary duty to shareholders

Ted notes that the plot of Prometheus is premised on a "complete breach of fiduciary duty of Weyland Corporation officers to their shareholders."

I weep for the future

From the UCLA Faculty Assn blog:

Which makes me think the future is going to look like this:

What if the Emperor was the good guy?

io9 has a list of movie tropes that need to be reversed, so that we see the other side's perspective. One of them is a theme I've wanted to see for a long time:

The freedom-loving rebels against the fascist empire.

From the empire striking back, to a ragtag group of serene space-western characters, to a guy who has a fetish for the letter V, this has to be the most popular storyline. I know that those who trade security for freedom end up losing both, and movies show that very well. The problem is, before you get to the point where you lose both, it's still a trade-off. And the term trade-off means that both concepts have value. To the rebels, the fascists who run their world have gone too far. What if there was a movie where, from some perspectives at least, they hadn't?

Isn't there someone on the Death Star who just wants to keep order in a massive system of planets, all filled with Cantinas in which people get shot regularly? Maybe this guy doesn't understand why people keep trying to blow up his workplace. What about the Alliance, which fought a war to try to organize and supply a sprawling galaxy full of colony planets, and is rightly annoyed by people randomly stealing from them? And while it's clear that the intolerant government that V railed against supported monsters, they also kept their country together when others were falling apart. How would a person working in that government react to a guy who takes hostages, shoots cops, and blows up buildings? The rebels want freedom, which sounds good in pop songs, but is that always the best idea? A look at the other side, for once, might make a good movie.

I'd love to see that movie.

Female action heroes

io9:

Action heroines are rare creatures. The earliest were female versions of pre-existing male heros, like Wonder Woman, BatGirl and SuperGirl. Some more recent heroines have their roots in fantasy or sci-fi, like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Selene from Underworld, or Alice from Resident Evil. But while there are plenty of realistic male heroes who run, jump and fight without being cartoony or existing in a vampire realm - think Jason Bourne, James Bond or Ethan Hunt - there are very [few] female counterparts.

Maybe so. But I think there have been some awfully good ones. Off the top of my head and in no particular order: Sarah Walker. Samantha Caine. The Bride. Mrs. Smith. Evelyn Salt. Nikita. Erica Bain. Sydney Bristow. Grace Hanadarko. Mary Shannon. Pretty much every character Michelle Yeoh's played. Ditto re Pam Grier. All wonderful action characters at least as "realistic" as Jason Bourne or James Bond (and most of them could probably kick Biond's butt).

And what's wrong with SF heroines? The iconic Sarah Connor. The great, great Ellen Ripley. Emma (be still my heart) Peel. Xena. Trinity. Starbuck (reimagined). Abby Maitland. Dana Scully.

DVD of the Day: Richard III

Helen and I watched one of my favorite movies, Ian McKellen's resetting of Shakespeare's Richard III ina fascist version of 1930s England. She loved it, as did I. Highly recommended.

Amazon says: "McKellen is the best thing about the movie, his mesmerizing portrayal of freakish despotism and poisoned desire a thing to behold." I totally agree. He's so brilliant that he outshines the glorious Son of York.

I think I'd like living in Bag End

Peter Jackson's got a couple of snaps of what is probably the set for Bilbo Baggins' house.

Apollo 18 Teaser

The poster for the forthcoming film Apollo 18 looks pretty cool, as does the tag line:

Love the alien footprint.

HT: io9

Avatar Confession

I finally broke down and watched Avatar on HBO last night (I guess I'm probably the only person who didn't see it in theater). Anyway, I must agree with those who think it's "the most expensive piece of anti-American propaganda ever made." Candidly, and just between us, long before the end I was rooting for the Marines.

Lego Star Wars Reimagined

A reboot of the Star Wars franchise in Lego:

Hobbit Casting News

At iO9: looks like a great lineup. Ian McKellen must come back as Gandalf. The speculation about Stephen Fry and David Tennant is interesting, as well. I'm having trouble figuring out which characters they might play, however. Tennant was rumored to be in the running for Bibo, but that's gone to Martin Freeman (whio will be brilliant). Perhaps Tennant as the elf king and Fry as the voice of Smaug, although the betting is that Bill Nighy will voice Smaug?

It's about damn time

Sharon Waxman:

'The Hobbit' has been greenlit and will start production in February, an individual close to the production has told TheWrap. As TheWrap reported previously, Peter Jackson has agreed to direct the film in addition to producing and writing the two-part project.

No one but Jackson could have done The Hobbit justice, IMHO. I can't wait for it.

"The Call of Cthulhu in Under 2 Minutes."

Here at PB.com, we dote on HP Lovecraft, so we got a kick out of this video (HT: Althouse):